Abstract
The mechanical and structural properties of bone are known to change significantly with age. Within forensic and archaeological investigations, the medial end of the clavicle is typically used for estimating the age-at-death of an unknown individual. Although, this region of the skeleton is of interest to forensic and clinical domains, alterations beyond the macro-scale have not been fully explored. For this study, non-destructive micro-computed tomography (μ-CT) was employed to characterize structural alterations to the cancellous bone of the medial clavicle. Fresh human cadaveric specimens (12-59 years) obtained at autopsy were utilized for this study, and were scanned with a voxel size of ~83 μm. Morphometric properties were quantified and indicated that the bone volume, connectivity density, mineral density, and number of trabeculae decreased with age, while the spacing between the trabeculae increased with age. In contrast to other sub-regions of the skeleton, trabecular thickness, and degree of anisotropy did not correlate with age. Collectively, this could suggest that the network is becoming increasingly perforated with age rather than exhibiting trabecular thinning. These results are used in the context of deriving a potential protocol for forensic investigations by using this particular and largely unexplored region of the skeleton, and provide inspiration for future experiments concerning micro-architectural and small scale changes in other regions of the human skeleton.
Highlights
The dynamic and heterogeneous nature of bone is an engineering feat of human evolution
The objectives of this study were to examine the inner structure of the medial clavicle by μ-CT, in order to characterize changes in the trabecular microstructure as a function of age as well as examine the implications and potential input of this work in future case studies on aging providing a more objective analytical basis for age estimation in forensic science
A careful observation of the data showed that there was a qualitative change in behavior for before and after 23–25 years of age, so the data was examined for significance over the whole range and for samples older than 25 years
Summary
The dynamic and heterogeneous nature of bone is an engineering feat of human evolution This biological composite is designed to achieve an optimal balance between lightness, strength and toughness, allowing the skeleton to perform its primary mechanical functions (Martin, 1993; Zhou et al, 1996; Beck and Marcus, 1999; Currey, 2002; Tranquilli Leali et al, 2009; Chen et al, 2013; Johannesdottir and Bouxsein, 2018). As a method, are subjective and rely on the expertise and experience of the forensic examiner (Zioupos et al, 2014), and can be foiled by other factors such as soft tissue attachments which obscure the true topography of the articular surface needed for accurate assessment (Crowder and Pfeiffer, 2010)
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